Bangladesh will play New Zealand in the third and final One-Day International (ODI) in Napier tomorrow, attempting to salvage anything from the already lost series. The match will start at 4:00 a.m. (Bangladesh time).
The visitors’ batting attempts fell short in both games, and except from Shoriful Islam, the rest of their bowling team failed to deliver.
The top-order’s inability to produce runs has been a recent concern, but in New Zealand conditions, the Tigers have had quite a few batting collapses – they have failed to win an ODI match against the Black Caps at their home ground after 18 tries.
In the first game, New Zealand took advantage of a rain-affected 30-over-per-side encounter, with Bangladesh’s front-line pacers having each completed five of their six-over quotas prior to the rain. As a consequence, a spinner and Soumya Sarkar were used in the dying overs as the home team scored a big total. Bangladesh hitters failed to come near to the goal because of the strong bounce.
The top order disappointed once again in the following game, but Soumya, who began the batting, made a career-best 169 to surpass Sachin Tendulkar as the greatest individual score by an Asian hitter in New Zealand. Apart from Mushfiqur Rahim, the rest of the batsmen failed to score, while Soumya led Bangladesh to a total of 291. The bowlers thereafter caused little issue for New Zealand and the series was lost.
Bangladesh, according to New Zealand all-rounder Rachin Ravindra, “have been on top at some point of the [two] matches” and “are still a very good team on their day.”
“They [Bangladesh] had moments in each of these games… Soumya Sarkar’s performance was outstanding. Then, in the first game, they had us at two for four, putting pressure on us. So it is critical that we do not relent and continue to do what we do well.” Rachin said the day before.
Bangladesh’s squad management made two changes in the previous game, dumping Mustafizur Rahman in favor of Tanzim Hasan Sakib and removing Afif Hossain to create place for a specialist bowler in Rishad Hossain. This time, the pacers will have to step up, as McLean Park, which last hosted an ODI in 2019 when New Zealand defeated Bangladesh by eight wickets, has seen teams batting first lose four of the past five matches.